Category Archives: links

Not just any pancake

Posted on October 31, 2010 by bipolarlawyercook| 7 Comments

The hus­band can cook.  Very well, in fact.  He is a break­fast cook extra­or­di­naire.  His omelets?  You should be so lucky to be the recip­i­ent of his egg cook­ery.  Trust me on this.  He gave me (while I was dat­ing another man, no less) my copies of Mas­ter­ing the Art of French Cook­ing one Christ­mas.  He’s also an excel­lent baker.  (Just don’t expect him not to use every pot in the kitchen.)

So, when I was look­ing at Amanda Hesser’s web­site, food52, and saw David Eyre’s Pan­cake there as a pre­view of the new Essen­tial New York Times Cook­book, I thought to myself, “Self, this is what we’re hav­ing for break­fast tomor­row.”  And promptly handed the recipe over to my Bet­ter Half.  Because I stink at mak­ing pancakes.

Yep.  I am made of pan­cake fail.  You heard it here first.

But the hus­band?  He is not.  He can also make waf­fles.  And some­times?  The gluten is worth it.  These pan­cakes most def­i­nitely are worth it.  Cut into fourths, sprin­kled with a lit­tle lemon juice and coated with pow­dered (or superfine, because that’s what we had) sugar– mmmm.  Deli­cious.  A recipe worth the book’s price of admis­sion, I think.

Truly.  There’s a rea­son we’ve been mar­ried for 10 years this com­ing week.

Well, that and the open­ing jars thing.

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Posted in Better Half, baking, cooking, flickr, food, links, photos

Minestrone with Almond Pistou

Posted on October 15, 2010 by bipolarlawyercook| 5 Comments

I have, in the past, pooh-poohed the idea of things like fancy-shmancy herb top­pings and such.  And then I dis­cov­ered gre­mo­lata and learned the errors of my ways.

I have now learned that yes– putting pesto, or, as the French say, pis­tou, or your mine­strone?  It’s a mighty fine thing.

Last night’s soup, inter­preted to use what I had in my pantry and fridge from this Melissa Clark recipe here at the NYT (quickly becom­ing my go-to gal, even more so than Bittman), was topped off by a dol­lop of almond pis­tou.  It was mighty deli­cious, even with my fid­dling about and omis­sions, the which you’ll see when you com­pare my bas­tardized ver­sion to Clark’s, which no doubt is bet­ter– but I didn’t have leeks, fresh toma­toes, or fresh beans of the kind she called for on hand, but I still wanted soup.  So I winged it, because I did have fresh basil– and really, when you’ve got fresh basil, pis­tou just must be made.

Look at that photo and see if you disagree.

And now the impor­tant part:  the recipe, such as it is.

1 32 oz. can chef’s cut toma­toes, with or with­out basil.
1 small can chick­peas
12 baby car­rots, appx. or 1 large peeled car­rot
1 large onion, chopped
1 med. zuc­chini, chopped
large hand­ful green beans
1 sprig rose­mary
large spring pars­ley
2 cups chicken broth made from Knorr bouil­lon (Yes.  I am really that lazy.  All the time.  I do not use stock, pretty much ever.)
tsp. salt
3 tbsps. extra vir­gin olive oil, because that’s all I ever keep in the house
3 gar­lic cloves, peeled and smashed with the flat of a large knife

Pis­tou:
Large bunch basil, appx. 2 cups
1/2 cup unsalted roasted almonds, skin on
freshly ground pep­per
1/4 cup parme­san, grated
salt, 1 tsp
extra vir­gin olive oil
2 gar­lic cloves, peeled
1/4 tsp. red pep­per flakes

Tie the herbs together with butcher’s twine, put them in a tea ball or cheese­cloth, or decide you don’t mind fish­ing them out or pick­ing out pieces of rose­mary from your teeth (or finely chop the herbs and add them to the sauce that way).

Saute the car­rots, onions and herbs over med-high heat in the olive oil with salt, pep­per and red pep­per flakes until soft­ened, appx. 5 mins.

Add gar­lic and other veg­eta­bles, except for toma­toes and beans, toss to coat in oil and lightly golden, appx. 10 mins. more.  Do not let the gar­lic get too brown.

Add the toma­toes, beans, chick­peas, and a can of water from the tomato can, lower the heat and set the whole thing to sim­mer 30 mins. with the lid on.  (I only added one can of water from the chick­peas and now wished I’d added just a bit more, so I’m say­ing that I should have added from the tomato can and not the chick­peas as I look back.)

When the soup is done, make the pis­tou in your food proces­sor or blender or mor­tar and pes­tle or other wham-bashy thing (I know.  Highly tech­ni­cal, here.)  Whiz the basil with the remain­ing ingre­di­ents and just enough olive oil to make a thick paste that coheres to itself but isn’t too liquid.

Put a teaspoon-sized dol­lop on top of your soup, serve with a hearty red wine like a petite sirah from Bogle or a Rioja or some­such, and enjoy the veg­etable, herb-almond-cheesy goodness.

I think if you had a lac­tose allergy or didn’t eat cheese you could well leave out the parme­san in the pis­tou, up the salt slightly, and still have the same over­all tasty effect.  I’d prob­a­bly add more oil and almonds to up the fat con­tent as well.

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Posted in Pantry cooking, cooking, flickr, food, links, photos, recipes, wine

In which fish stew is made and consumed and I actually post on the internet, too, only breaking a few laws in the process.

Posted on October 6, 2010 by bipolarlawyercook| 1 Comment

I know.  You’re shocked.  Cook­ing, here at bipolarlawyercook?

What’s up with that?

Here, let me get out the smelling salts before I start post­ing pic­tures and recount­ing the recipe and prov­ing that yeah, that “cook” thing in my han­dle isn’t there just for show.

I know.  I had to pick the poor Bet­ter Half up off the floor too.  More­over, I had to enlist the poor bas­tard in prep­ping the stew, it’d been so long since I’d been home on a week­night and had the day off and had the time to go gro­cery shop­ping (thank you, end­less round of close shifts and emo­tional exhaus­tion prior to job trans­fer, whut?)  But he was a champ, and we got it done, which was good, because today was one of those first raw fall blus­tery days where you’re (or maybe just me, but still) all– “Hmm.  SOUP.  Yeah.”

This tasty, gluten-free, low-carbish (just leave out the rice and brown sugar if you so choose) white fish stew is DELICIOUS.  And not really a chow­der despite my sojourn this past week­end in Province­town on the Cape (and more, per­haps, some­time, on how the leather dad­dies and their boys knew my col­lege best friend and I weren’t together but the les­bians all seemed to give us the “you’re a cute cou­ple” nod, which I thought was lol­rar­i­ous) stew is Thai-flavored, deli­cious, and except for a lit­tle chop­ping for prep, quick-cooking and easy to make.

It comes straight from Melissa Clark’s new book In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite , a cook­book I am very much enjoy­ing and lit­ter­ing with pos­tit notes at night in my bed.  Clark writes reg­u­larly for the NYT, and I’ve made sev­eral recipes of hers over this spring and sum­mer that were solid hits that I just haven’t got­ten around to post­ing about (includ­ing her OMG gaz­pa­cho with yogurt which you should go google right now).  (I’ve been COOKING.  I’ve just been remiss in blog­ging.  I know.  You’re shocked.)

I tweaked the recipe in one way that departs from the highly copy­right viola­tive way in which I am about to just post the fol­low­ing photo of the recipe straight from the book:  I rinsed and chopped one small­ish zuc­chini, halved it length­wise, then halved it again and cut it into thin quar­ter slices, to be added in at the last stage with the fish.

As for the rest:  the BH does not care for shell­fish, so I used 1 lb. wild-caught George’s Bank cod in place of the vari­ety rec­om­mended, since the snap­per was farmed and I just … don’t like farmed fish, no mat­ter what peo­ple may say about safety.  I served it with Jas­mine rice, wicked lazy style– Trader Joe’s sells some frozen (I shit you not) in lit­tle microwav­able bags and I zapped one to serve on the side and spoon into the bowl.  You could skip it if you’re count­ing your carbs.  Like­wise, the recipe calls for 1 tbsp. brown sugar for that authen­tic Thai-ish kind of taste.  I have a feel­ing you could add in agave nec­tar in equal pro­por­tion right before serv­ing if you were watch­ing your sugar and get about the same fla­vor, though I haven’t tried it.

So.  Recipe.  (I know.  Going to hell.  At least I will have been well fed on the way…):

Mise en place, aka all that shit you need to get started.

And then, by the magic of my being too lazy to take a pic­ture of what’s really a very fast process– seri­ously, stir the shal­lots and gar­lic until ten­der in oil, then add the liq­uid and sim­mer 10 min­utes before adding the fish and the zuc­chini and cook­ing three min­utes more– we have the fin­ished product.

Voila.  Pretty, pretty coconut fish stew with basil and lemon­grass.  And zuc­chini.  Because I’m sub­ver­sive in adding veg­gies like that.

Here’s the ver­sion with rice, in case you want to know what it looks like all fragrant-steamy with the added odor of Jas­mine rice mix­ing in with the coconut milk and the lime juice and fish stew loveliness.

Thus ends my fish tale, all of it totally true.  Espe­cially the part about my vio­lat­ing copy­right by post­ing the recipe pic­ture.  Although adding the zuc­chini arguably trans­forms this whole post into fair use.

I think.

Eh.

I think I’ll have some more soup and not worry instead.  It’s that kind of soup.

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Posted in Better Half, books, cooking, flickr, food, gluten free, links, low carb, photos, recipes

The benefits of just … letting

Posted on October 2, 2010 by bipolarlawyercook| 6 Comments

I am … a con­trol freak.  I feel like I have to get every­thing done.  On my own.  My way.

But the thing about a ner­vous break­down, a truly colos­sal one, see, is you lose all kinds of con­trol, and then it’s a strug­gle to try to get any kind back.  And then decide what’s worth keep­ing, and what’s worth … giv­ing over.

Inde­pen­dence is one thing.  San­ity is another.  And over­bur­den­ing your­self prov­ing that you can do this… it just isn’t worth it, because Super­woman?  She doesn’t exist, even one who isn’t stressed and over­worked to begin with.  (And face it– even the ones of us who aren’t on anti­de­pres­sants often are over­worked– stressed.)

So … I’ve tried to start let­ting.  Let­ting the dishes on the side of the sink not bug me so much dur­ing the week until one of us gets to them.  One of these days.  Let­ting the peo­ple at the gro­cery stores help me with my bags rather than– damnit, no, I’m a strong woman, I can carry them all out myself– because you know what, it’s been a long day, I am tired, and that’s what they get paid for, albeit not much, and I always can tip.  Let­ting the nice His­panic ladies at Saint Rossmore’s laun­dro­mat do my laun­dry and smile at me and call me bebe as they hand me back the laun­dry that always breeds like rab­bits and is a housh­old task I can’t stand– and they tell me I look nice, or look tired, and pat me on the arm and tell me to have a nice day and believe that they mean it as they chivvy “ninito, get over here, don’t bother the nice man,” and then roll their eyes at me as their lit­tle boy rolls his tonka over the as-always spot­less brightly-colored plas­tic fold­ing tables.  When I have to wait because “Dios Mio, what a day, let me tell you, he puke all over the floor, he no tell me he feel­ing sick, just boom, all over the floor, I’m sorry I’m late, bebe, I’ll be done in 10 minute, I get you a cafe,” and then she gets me a cup of the brewed Cafe Bustelo they make for them­selves in the back– made creamy and sugary-sweet because that’s how she likes it– well, that’s how I like it too, then in that moment.

And then after I get my laun­dry, jazzed up on warm­ing Bustelo and a note that “Bebe, you look tired, you been work­ing too hard,” so when I tell her I’m going away for the week­end to hang out with my best friend from col­lege, she says, “Oh, that’s good, you go danc­ing, you dance off your tired…” it’s advice I just might let stick.

–

The man at the gas sta­tion had some 70s song I didn’t know blar­ing out of his well-kempt black Caddy– “Beau­ti­ful Lady” or “Beau­ti­ful Woman” or some­thing, and he was check­ing me out as I walked back to the car.  “Fif­teen reg­u­lar on eleven please.”  I smiled at him as he made eye con­tact, because hey, I’ll take a com­pli­ment where I can get it, even if sloppy grey pants, Birks, wet hair in a bun and an acid green fleece at eight in the morn­ing are not my idea of pick-up attire.  Maybe he just likes a girl who pumps her own gas at the only cash-only place in the ‘hood.  I paid it no more mind as I pumped the car full, wiped down the win­dows, drove over to the air pump and filled up the tires.  The hood latch though, so I could refill the wind­shield wiper fluid– the damned catch was stuck, and try as I might, it just wouldn’t release.  Tug– slam it back down, pop it up once again, and my WD-40 can of course was out of grease (though at least I had the can in my trunk…) and then he came over.

Big­ger hands, of course, and he gave a grunt and a tug and agreed it was stuck, but with big­ger fin­gers and yes– more man­power, he got it open, and I poured in my wind­shield liq­uid, no prob­lem.  He apol­o­gized for the cig­a­rette smoke and I smiled, joked if it wasn’t for the hus­band, I’d smoke more myself.  He smiled and laughed, said his wife insisted he smoke only out­side of the house and so he did it here, at the office.  And then he doffed his imag­i­nary base­ball cap at me and walked back to his pris­tine, older model black Cadil­lac, parked near the back of the lot.  As I pulled back and out of lot, I noted the plate.  “Hatoff,” it said.

So– thank you, Saint Stan, or descen­dant thereof.  I’m glad you came over to help.  And I’m glad that I let you.

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Posted in Deep Thoughts, flickr, links

Have you had your mammogram?

Posted on September 17, 2010 by bipolarlawyercook| 3 Comments

Thanks to Cheri at Blog This Mom and her Face­book page for the vid link below and the reminder. Have you had your mam­mo­gram yet if you’re 40– or younger if you come from fam­ily with high inci­dence of breast or cer­vi­cal and/or uter­ine can­cer or you’ve tested pos­i­tive for the breast can­cer gene?

I had my base­line at 30 because my mom was diag­nosed at 40, and I’m good about rou­tine self-exams, but I’ll be 36 this year and it’s time for me to get my sec­ond squish­ing and checkup.  It was uncom­fort­able, yeah– but it’s bet­ter than a blow to the head, and cer­tainly bet­ter than the alter­na­tives, that’s hella for sure.

You can find out about free mam­mo­grams in Mass­a­chu­setts here.

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Posted in Deep Thoughts, YouTube, friends, good things, links, medicine, mom